Chapter four

They stripped me to scraps of the torn dress and stood me on a platform in the pack's underground hall.

Fifty wolves stared up at me like meat behind glass.

"Lot number seven!" the auctioneer boomed. "Twenty four, unmated, rare coloring. Look at that auburn hair, gentlemen. Look at those curves."

His hand swept toward my barely covered body. Bile rose in my throat. But I didn't look at the floor. I looked every single one of them in the face as they laughed and leered.

I'm going to remember you, I told them silently. Every face. Every one of you who spat on me. One day I won't be the helpless Omega you think I am, and on that day, I'm going to make you pay.

"Do I hear five thousand? She's unspoiled, despite her crimes. Perfect for domestic service, or…" A meaningful pause. "Personal use."

A paddle rose at the back. "Five thousand."

"Six!"

"Seven!"

The numbers climbed. Men bartered over my body like I couldn't hear them.

"This is illegal," someone muttered. "Pack law forbids selling members without Council approval—"

"Pack law is whatever I say it is." Dayn's voice cut through the room. He stood at the edge of the platform, arms crossed. "I'm the Alpha. What I decree in my territory is law."

"But the Alpha King—"

"The Alpha King isn't here." Dayn smiled thinly. "By the time word reaches him, she'll be gone. Far outside his reach."

My stomach turned at how carefully he'd planned my disappearance.

"Ten thousand." A deep voice from the front row.

I looked before I could stop myself.

Middle-aged. Expensively dressed. Eyes that made my wolf cower and whimper.

"Ten thousand from Lord Silas Corvain!" the auctioneer crowed. "Do I hear eleven?"

Silence.

"Going once."

Please, I begged the Goddess who'd already abandoned me. Anyone. Stop this.

"Going twice."

No one moved. No one ever would. Not for me.

"Sold! To Lord Corvain, ten thousand!"

Applause. They were actually applauding

Corvain rose and came toward the platform, his smile the kind that lived in nightmares. "I'll collect her now."

"Not yet." Dayn stepped between us. "Payment has to clear. Paperwork has to be filed. She'll be held in the dungeons overnight. Collect her tomorrow."

Corvain's jaw ticked, but he nodded. His eyes crawled over me. "Don't damage her further. I paid good money for that body."

Guards hauled me off the platform. My legs barely worked, fear and two weeks of hunger draining what strength I had left. They dragged me down spiral stairs, deep beneath the pack house, into cold that sank into my bones and air that stank of rot.

They threw me into a cell. Stone walls, dirt floor, one barred window high near the ceiling showing a sliver of night sky.

"Your new owner comes at dawn," a guard smirked. "Rest up. You'll need your strength."

The door clanged shut. The lock turned.

Alone.

I sank down, my bound wrists twisted painfully behind me, the torn dress doing nothing against the chill.

Tomorrow. I had until dawn before Corvain took me and I stopped belonging to myself entirely.

No. I refused.

I'd already survived a sister who hated me, a family that let her, and a pack that beat me for crimes I didn't commit. I would not lie here and wait to be *collected.*

I worked at the ropes. The guards had been lazy, or maybe they just couldn't imagine a weak Omega fighting back. It took twenty minutes of grinding my wrists raw and bloody, but the knots finally gave.

I dragged the cot beneath the window and climbed. The bars were old, rusted through. When I hauled on one, it . . . shifted.

Hope flared, sharp and painful.

I pulled harder, ignoring the blood slicking my hands. The bar groaned then bent. And with one last wrench, it tore loose.

The gap was barely wide enough. I forced myself through it, stone scraping my sides raw, my wolf lending me every scrap of flexibility she had left. Then I dropped down into the narrow dark between the dungeon wall and the world outside.

I shifted.

My wolf was weak, starved, shaking on her legs. But she knew where to run. There was one person left in this world who might still believe me. My oldest friend, Hilda, in the next pack over. I'd never wanted to drag her into my ruin.

Now it was run to her or die.